


I know where I've been

by TeaCub90



Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25187698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: ‘Just hold me.'
Relationships: Craig Dean/John Paul McQueen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	I know where I've been

**Author's Note:**

> I've been relying heavily on Hollyoaks to get me through the past few weeks, which have been ridden with OCD and anxiety and has wound up completely savaging my writing in the process. But then my old McDean chum Laura set me a challenge: try and write something by Friday, even if it's something small. I haven't written Craig and John-Paul in ten years, but thought I'd get them back out.

* * *

‘Don’t let go,’ Craig’s voice is pleading, and upset, and so very high with _something_ that John-Paul can’t see, only hear, only feel, with Craig’s arms locked so tightly around his shoulders, Craig’s hands – slim as ever, he hasn’t changed, always like a papercut waiting to happen – on his back, and trembling, utterly _trembling,_ beneath his hands. 

‘It’s alright,’ John-Paul manages, unable to contain his shock; blinks over his friend’s – ex-flame’s – ex-love’s – most infuriating occurrence of his life’s shoulder and pats his back. Feels young again, suddenly – feels so stupidly young, feels the weight of the years lift and turn by degrees with this sudden appearance, a spectre from his youth, showing up with messy hair, an overnight bag, and a wild expression. If he were to close his eyes, he could imagine it was 2007 again; all flip-phones and drinking at the SU bar and imagining taking the world by storm. Before Dublin, before Niall, before Finn, before all the losses of adulthood.

‘It’s alright,’ he manages again, although it clearly is _not_ alright; it’s actually kind of a stupid thing to say, isn’t it, because Craig holds on even tighter to him, a scared kind of huff escaping through his mouth, grasping the back of his jacket and John-Paul can only imagine the look on his face: desperate, and just a little bit frightened. A little bit unsteady.

He remembers this bit, too; the panic, the clinging onto one another for reassurance, _I’m not gay but I love you, that’s alright, isn’t it, tell me that’s alright and people will understand, tell me everything will be okay._

‘I’m sorry,’ Craig’s voice is a mutter in his ear. ‘I’m sorry, John – John-Paul, I just, I hadn’t, I didn’t know where else to go.’

‘We’re still mates,’ John-Paul assures him dumbly and that much at least is not a lie, never could be. You don’t go what they’ve been through, do the things they’ve done, and part on a handshake and a lukewarm goodbye. ‘We always said we’d look out for each other.’

A cold kind of chuckle reaches his ears – not cold like a smirk, but cold like a _shiver,_ a desperate man trying to catch his breath, to see some good in this world that’s cut them both to the bone and John-Paul tightens his hold automatically, an impulse from years gone of sharing a bed, huddling together for warmth, cuddling together on the sofa, holding each other closely on the dance-floor. There were always good times as well as bad ones.

And despite his history since then – Ste and James and all the other men, all those other names that he’s ashamed to admit he sometimes has trouble recalling outright, when he really stops and thinks about it – Craig’s embrace is always one he remembers; sometimes brought to memory on the colder nights when missing him was just all too much, curling up beneath the blankets with the shade of something good, once upon a time. Well, they were together long enough, he supposes; even the second time around, when all the memory muscle came back and they had a couple more years together of laughing and drinking and acting like grown-ups, he’ll still never forget, more than anything, holding Craig’s hand in Phoenix Park; meeting him with hugs and backslaps on the Dublin street-corners, outside pubs and bookshops and clubs; the roar of the Viking tour; hiking to the Irish coast.

(And despite it all, nobody else is really – could _ever_ be – like Craig).

‘I’m sorry, thanks,’ Craig says again and he pulls back, his hands anchoring themselves to John-Paul’s chest, and his eyes – his eyes are so swollen and he looks so tired and so _young_ (and still handsome) and John-Paul finds his hands falling automatically to his waist before he remembers himself and fastens them determinedly to Craig’s elbows instead, keeps him in place.

This is the moment when they’d kiss, he considers with a sudden start and is sure – with the kind of certainty that comes from knowing somebody so intimately for nearly half your life and sharing a bed and secrets with them for an entire summer – that he sees something similar crossing Craig’s face and for a moment, everything is still – at least, John-Paul is still. Craig is still _shaking,_ like a leaf who’s clearly trembled all the way from Singapore to here, still smells of sweat and plane and the clear desperation to get somewhere else, somewhere _safe,_ even if it’s somewhere where his sister’s died and his mother’s died and hearts have been broken; even if it’s to John-Paul himself – and they’re just staring at each other in the clear, shared fallacy of ‘I have no idea what to do next.’ Stuck, it seems, in each other’s arms.

Well. There are _worse_ places to be stuck. There have been, too – they both know this. Craig’s thumbs rub into John-Paul’s shoulders, an attempt to ground himself more than anything – John-Paul recognises the behaviour, an anxious tic – and his heart just melts and he does the only thing he can do and pulls Craig back to him; is rewarded with a relieved sigh and a murmur of ‘Cheers’ as his friend rests back against him like a pillar.

‘Be alright,’ he says, over and over, because _something_ has clearly happened, something bad and unspeakable that Craig can’t explain just yet and if John-Paul understands anything, he understands that. ‘Honestly, Craig, it’ll – it’ll all be okay. I’m here now, alright, it’s alright. You’re not alone.’

‘J-just hold me,’ Craig pleads again, the J’s all tripping over each other, his old stammer giving _everything_ away, falling into a sob. ‘Just – just _hold_ me, please, John-Paul.’

*


End file.
